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First Steering Group Meet

Sunday afternoon at my home the first inaugral meeting of the steering group for a new East Dulwich free secondary school met.

Inaugral new East Dulwich secondary school campaign steering group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I launched and have run with this campaign for many months it’s definately time to open it up to parents that have the time to help make it happen. I’m also keen that it becomes a cross party campaign. Ensuring enough good school places shouldn’t be political.

A dozen of us chewed over what we’d like to see. We agreed that it would be:

– co ed and non faith

– non selective but have good SEN provision and ensure boys and girls succeed and with gifted and talented.

– subject specialism of teachers and the school specialise working with some of our great world renouned South London institutions.

– engage with parents and supporters.

We also agreed to approach two school providers initially – Prendergast and Haberdashers – to see if either wanted or could fulfil our aspirations. At that point we would pass the baton to them to lead this campaign.

Right to Contest – Dulwich Hospital

 The NHS could be forced to hand over part of the Dulwich Hospital site for a new secondary school after a local councillor formally referred the matter to Government Ministers.

A decision on its future will now be made by a panel comprising of Treasury Ministers and the Cabinet Office after I invoked new ‘Right to Contest’ powers to push the NHS, which owns the land, into selling it on. WS Dulwich Hospital 131216_Right_to_Contest_application_form_final

Despite the site being 27,000m² – the size of around four football pitches – currently less than a tenth of the space is being used.

I submitted the application earlier this month (5 February). I want to see at least half of the spare land used for a new secondary school to help plug the shortfall of permanent school places in the area. Land would also be available for the health centre already being planned on the site.

I believe this to be one of the very first applications of its kind in the country, after the new powers were introduced by the Government to free up public land and help boost economic growth. Launching the scheme in late January, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander MP said the Government “should not act as some kind of compulsive hoarder of land and property” that could be better used for other purposes.

My application will now go forward for review by the Government panel, which will also see input from the NHS and the Department of Communities and Local Government before a decision is made.

It is amazing that after 20 years of false starts the Dulwich Hospital site is still in limbo. It is a criminal shame that so much land stands idle and under utilised for decades, especially when money is tight.

Dulwich desperately needs a new local secondary school – not children being bussed far and wide as Labour propose. That’s why we have submitted an application using new Right to Contest rules on the use of public land, which were introduced by Liberal Democrat Ministers in government.

We are on the side of local parents who want to see a new and much-needed secondary school in the area, and an end to Dulwich Hospital being left as an empty wasteland….

Dulwich Hospital cleared site

£1,300 Increased Pupil Premium

Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has announced the biggest ever rise in the Pupil Premium for primary schools to help ensure that more pupils are able to achieve higher standards. It will now be £1,300 per pupil from April 2014 and based on qualifying pupil numbers in a school during January 2014.

The Pupil Premium provides schools with extra money to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will help whole classes move forward faster together.

It will be increased to £1,300 per eligible primary school pupil in 2014/15, up from £900 per child this year. That’s likely to be an extra £734,500 for primary schools in East Dulwich.

East Dulwich ward
Goodrich Community Primary School 302 £392,600
Goose Green Primary School 144 £187,200
Heber Primary School 74 £96,200
St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School 45 £58,500
Ward total 565 £734,500

Schools will be able to spend this money in ways that they feel helps their pupils best. Evidence shows some schools use it to hire extra staff, reading and maths classes for children who need extra support or provide appropriate IT facilities.

It should help ensure more local children are ready for senior school. All the evidence shows that if your child starts behind in secondary school, they stay behind. That is unacceptable. St

As part of the Lib Dems aim to build a fairer society, the Coalition Government is putting extra money into primary schools to help teachers support disadvantaged children. This has to be a good thing.

Southwark 2012 GCSE results

Southwark GCSE results of pupils getting five or more GCSE’s including maths and english A*-C arE:

School name Five good GCSEs or equivalents (%) Value Added
The From Boyhood To Manhood Foundation (IND) NA NA
Harris Boys’ Academy East Dulwich (AC) NA NA
Alleyn’s School (IND) 100 NA
James Allen’s Girls’ School (IND) 100 NA
Dulwich College (IND) 93 NA
The Charter School 78 1037
Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Secondary School 73 1041
St Michael’s Catholic College 71 1017
Bacon’s College (AC) 69 980
St Saviour’s and St Olave’s Church of England School 67 1035
Harris Girls’ Academy East Dulwich (AC) 64 1061
Harris Academy Bermondsey (AC) 62 1038
City of London Academy (Southwark) (AC) 61 1015
Notre Dame Roman Catholic Girls’ School 60 1004
Walworth Academy (AC) 60 981
St Michael and All Angels CofE Academy (AC) 58 1035
Harris Academy at Peckham (AC) 56 1040
ARK Globe Academy (AC) 45 1004
The St Thomas the Apostle College 42 975
Kingsdale Foundation School 36 971

School getting more than 1000 on the value added did particularly well. Kingsdale results are a shock.

The national average was 59.4% with the Southwark average at 58.8%. Very close to meeting the national average.

The Harris Boys Academy East Dulwich hasn’t yet had anyone sit GCSE’s. Fingers crossed they do well when they site GCSE’s summer 2014.

The most value added was the Harris Girls Academy East Dulwich and sadly the worst was Kingsdale. This latter school has fallen below the governments 40% minimum standard.

 

 

New Rotherhithe Bridge

Over a dozen years ago I suggested on behalf of Southwark Cyclists a new pedestrian and cycle bridge linking Rotherhithe with Canary Wharf.

Sustrans took this on as a project idea and its sisnce appeared in Southwark planning strategies. But its never quite taken of. Sustrans consultatnts Ramboll Whitbybird in 2008 suggested it would cost £66M capital and £69M to operate and maintain over its 125+ year considerable  life time to build at the height of the last boom.

Sustrans employed consulted Colin Buchanan to produce an economic appraisalwhich was last updated in 2008. It suggested such a bridge would result in significant numbers of people changing to walking and cycling to work and for leisure. They estimated 1m pedestrian and 1.6m cycle journeys a year. We know from the wobbly bridge that such estimates are usually wildly pessimistic.

Even so they estimated the benefits at over £236M + potential for £19M secondary revenue without any tourism impact.

They have a design in mind but these are a couple of other ideas to mull over for fun:

The Kieler Horn folding bridge.

The Duisburg Inner Harbour bridge which flexes up and way over any large ship or boat.

Horrific admission

Southwark issued some great news earlier this month about secondary school admissions – but it has proved wrong.

Yesterday I finally found out how many secondary school applications did not receive any school allocation, 20, rather than the zero proclaimed.

20 families in total didn’t receive a secondary school allocation. Shocking. A HUGE thank you to the Dulwich resident who highlighted their case to me.  It meant I could get to the bottom of their case and after various assurances I was mad and that this was impossible council officials think they know what went wrong and then found 19 other such families. All were offered places on Friday.

So the revised figures should look like:

* Total of 2,456 applications were received, 65 less applicants than last year

* 1,362 (55.4%) received a first preference school a 2.9% increase on last year’s figures 1,322 (52.5%)  versus the London average of 66%.

* 195 (7.9%) families without a preference and offered an alternative school fewer than last year – 243 (9.6%)

* 20 (0.8% ) families offered no places or an alternative school.

* The number of online applications has remained at the same level as last year

If you know of any families with school admission problems please do put them in touch with me.

Belated well done

Southwark secondary schools are now all academies and not directly reporting to Southwark Council but well done on the recently announced GCSE results.

Overall they’ve achieved 57.3% of pupils obtaining 5+ A*-C GCSE’s with English and Maths. Another solid year of improvement. This places Southwark 23rd out of London’s 32 boroughs. This is still some way behind the best London borough Sutton with 74.4% but not so far behind the mean average for London of 61.0%.

What’s especially clever about these results is it comes at a time when 69.9% of Southwark secondary school kids come from ethnic minorities. Many minorities tend historically to get worse results so its an even bigger challenge to break these trends.

How does this compare with neighbouring boroughs – Lambeth achieved 60.1% and Lewisham 55.0%.

Talking to local secondary head they’re clear they can do even better and with primary school results having improved so much over the last 8 years this bods well for the future.

But what happens to all those kids failed by Southwark Council and its schools in the past. I think they need to be given a second chance via free adult education.

What do you think?

OECD higher education survey

What a fascinating read – the OECD Education at a Glance survey of 34 member developed nations.

  • UK students contribute 65.5% of their university tuition fee costs – around double the OECD average and only less Korea and the United States – though the OECD is clear that the state-backed loan system is stronger than overseas.
  • Still a significant financial advantage of going to university – with degree-level educated men earning £131,578 excluding taxes, over a life time.
  • UK spending on education as a share of GDP is at 5.7% below the OECD average of 5.9% – though school spending rose at the eight fastest rate between 2000 and 2008 and HE spending at the sixth.
  • Secondary school class sizes have fallen at a faster rate than other countries – 19.6 compared with the 24.5 average
  • Primary school class sizes are higher – 24.5 compared to the 21 average – some of the biggest in the world.
  • Employment rate of adults without the equivalent of five good GCSEs) has dropped from 65.6% to 56.9%.

It seems clear UK classes are bigger at Infant and Primary schools and reducing their size could be funded by increasing Secondary school classes. Education builds on previous learning so we appear to be comparatively hampering earlier years for the benefit of later years.

Private schools tend to have Infant and Primary class sizes lower than the OECD average. That wont be by chance.

Do you think we should reduce class sizes at infant and primary schools even if that means increasing them at Secondary schools?

Do we want more primary school places? Yes.

I’ve been reflecting on my visits to ED Harris Boys Academy, Kingsdale School and Goodrich School.

In southern Southwark Kingsdale School being close to the southern point of Southwark admits around 50% Southwark kids. The remainder come from Lambeth and Lewisham.

Sadly quite a few SE22 kids failed to get places at a Southwark secondary school and this year were offered places at unpopular schools even as far away as New Cross in Lewisham.

It would be impossible to change Kingsdale admissions policy to favour by geography without fewer kids coming from Southwark which would exacerbate existing problems.

Suggestion:
That the space vacated by temporary ED Harris Boys School on the Langbourne primary school site is formerly incorporated into Langbourne School on condition that it becomes an academy incorporated into Kingsdale Academy. This would allow Langbourne a relatively remote Primary school to increase its reception intake by 1 whole reception class of 30 children.

As part of the same academy Kingsdale could propose admissions changes to favour Langbourne year 6 children.

Incorporating Langbourne would help give Kingsdale the land it wishes. Tying Langbourne into Kingsdale for admissions would dramatically increase Langbourne’s popularity.

The Kingsdale chair of governors is Lab Cllr Norma Gibbes and I proposed this to her and the Kingsdale head at the end of my visit.

To make it happen the Labour administration would need to transfer land to Langbourne. Langbourne school agreeing and Kingsdale agreeing. But the biggest hurdle will be the local community fed promises in the past and that needs to feel part of this.

What do you think?

Car Club revolution

Last week I met with Car Club gurus from Southwark Council and Streetcar (soon to be renamed Zip Cars to reflect a merger). I wanted to know how quickly we could help them expand in East Dulwich and Southwark to revolutionise car ownership and access to cars.

Fascinating to hear that Zip Cars is a largely north American company with 400,000 members across the states and claims to be the largest car club company in the world.

Every car club car has been shown over time to replace 22 privately owned cars. So short of draconian parking permits car club cars are one of the only ways to relieve car parking pressure. Car Club members tend to give up on ownership of either their primary or secondary cars. They tend to walk, cycle and use public transport more with car club membership.

So far Southwark has 115  car club cars with 23 in the Dulwich area – partly because we funded an extra 10 spaces via our East Dulwich Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding. Transport for London has provided funding to allow another 80 car club spaces over the next two year.

The only thing holding back further rapid growth is getting people to join. So far 7,750 members in Southwark but this is still short of the 15% of adults in Islington who’ve joined. In Southwark we’ll need to reach 35,000 to reach what some have called saturation. So still lots to be done.

If you have any big events coming up and would be happy for the Streetcar promo team to come along please do get in touch with me.